A closer look
Symbolics.com became the first ever commercially registered internet domain name when a Massachusetts computer company claimed it on March 15, 1985. At that time, the internet was just a barren digital wasteland populated by a few hundred nerds, meaning this company had the absolute pick of the litter for naming rights and chose something that sounds like an evil fictional corporation from an eighties sci-fi movie. Today, nearly four hundred million domain names have been registered, forcing desperate startups to name their companies by removing vowels and adding random consonants just to secure a website. Meanwhile, the original pioneer domain still exists out there in the digital ether, serving as an ancient monument to a time when you did not have to pay a squatter thousands of dollars just to own your actual last name online
